


hello from the outside

by luna_plath



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Drabble, F/M, One Shot, POV Male Character, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 03:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5811349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna_plath/pseuds/luna_plath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Grace leaves for New York he forces himself to get up as the sun is rising, to splash his face with cold water and take a deep breath of cold, sooty, Birmingham air.  Tommy puts a cigarette to his lips, tucks his gun into its holster, lights a match, draws a pull of smoke into his lungs. </p>
<p>Looking into the mirror, he tells himself: <i>my name is Tommy Shelby, and this is the first day of my death.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	hello from the outside

**Author's Note:**

> For guysberryman's prompt on tumblr.

When Grace leaves for New York he forces himself to get up as the sun is rising, to splash his face with cold water and take a deep breath of cold, sooty, Birmingham air. Tommy puts a cigarette to his lips, tucks his gun into its holster, lights a match, draws a pull of smoke into his lungs. 

Looking into the mirror, he tells himself: _my name is Tommy Shelby, and this is the first day of my death._

**

Few things surprise him now, not after France. After watching his closest friends perish in an undignified, muddy hole in the ground every day, again and again, to the point of monotony, after killing men without so much as learning their names, after seeing the world roll over and show its cruel, merciless underside he can find little that he considers shocking anymore. At least, not until he sees her at the Darby, her eyes clear and purposeful when she tells him that she’s pregnant with his child. 

Then, something in him moves. In the place where he thought his heart used to be he feels an ache, like the burn of warm air on skin that’s been frozen stiff in the cold, that flash of pain when he bends his fingers to bring circulation back into the cold, rigid joints. Grace peers into his face and he tears his eyes away, pushes down his clamoring hunger to memorize how she looks in this exact moment. Deep, splintering fault lines are emerging in his chest, cracks in a tunnel wall before the weight of everything caves in on itself and buries him alive.

“I’ll meet you later,” Tommy tells her, his hand holding hers too tightly. He’s wrestles her face out of his mind, pushes her hand out of his grip, the acidic, gun-metal flavor of paranoia filling his mouth. Zabini is here, along with Campbell, Lizzie, and that goddammed officer he’s been forced to take out. 

Grace sends him a look that he doesn’t even have to examine. She understands, she’ll wait for him to finish whatever business he’s mixed up in, but Tommy can see from the slant of her mouth that her understanding has limits—and he is treading on them.

**

It’s not unusual for him to be up early, not when sleep leaves him feeling clammy and full of pent-up thoughts that rush forward whenever he closes his eyes, but it is unusual for anyone to be up at the same hour as him.

Polly is sitting at the kitchen table, a newspaper spread out in front of her, a cup of tea placed squarely on top of an article about the latest parliamentary schemes in London. The thought of what the article could be about sends a wave of nausea and irritation through his gut.

“When were you going to tell us?” Polly asks, not angry, just resigned, giving him plenty of space to fill in the thoughts he knows she must be harboring.

After the races Grace had turned up at his office in her traveling suit and dark red hat, reminding him of that day so long ago when she’d helped him deceive Billy Kimber in her scarlet film-star dress. 

He’d missed her.

“I wanted to be sure before I said anything,” Tommy says. It’s the truth. He’d thought on what he wanted with Grace for the entirety of his walk back to the racetrack, his thoughts punctuated by ripples of pain from the wound above his eyebrow and the hot trickle of blood down his face. 

“But you felt sure enough to tell Michael,” Polly says.

Tommy had stumbled into his office as soon as he’d made it back to Birmingham, blood on his collar, dust on his coat. Grace had been sitting at his desk, two cigarettes in the ash tray and a stack of his private records spread out in front of her.

“Finished taking care of things?” she’d asked.

Tommy remembers closing the door behind him and shrugging out of his coat, remembers hearing the garment drop to the floor behind him. He’d stood beside her, head and shoulders above her seated frame but feeling like he was the one pinned in place.

“Yes.”

He’d touched her cheek, brushed his hand through her hair, felt his whole body writhe underneath his skin when she’d taken one of his fingers between her teeth.

In the weak morning light, Tommy meets Polly’s dark, inky gaze, the memory of Grace in his office thick in his veins. 

“There wasn’t any telling. Michael saw something he wasn’t meant to see. I’m surprised he kept it from you for this long.”

Tommy pours himself a cup of tea from the pot Polly’s left on the table. He takes a sip; it’s dark and scalding hot, burning its way along the back of his throat.

“The wedding is this Sunday. Will you be there?” he asks.

Polly gives him a slight roll of her eyes, the hint of a smile turning up the corners of her mouth. 

“Of course.” Her expression says more, as if she has an unlimited number of thoughts on the subject, but Tommy reads her clearly. Her expression reads: _where else would I possibly be, Thomas?_

“I’ll tell Ada,” Polly volunteers. “But you’ll have to share this with your brothers. They deserve to hear it from you.”

Tommy nods. The two of them finish their tea in silence. He’s grateful that she doesn’t have any further questions about the nature of what Michael walked in on. 

When Polly leaves the kitchen he feels like he’s been given a blessing of some kind, like the world has lifted him out of slumber and let him rejoin the land of the living. It’s a good feeling.

**FIN.**


End file.
